Latvia: The Supernova finalists

All Sundays in February are Supernova Sundays. Tonight we had the semi-final in the Riga Beaver show from Latvia, where eight artists fought for the last four tickets to the Final next Sunday. Watch all the performances from the semi-final here!

The public broadcaster in Latvia, LTV, has picked 20 songs for this year's Supernova. They have competed in two preliminary heats with four songs from each heat to proceed to tonight's Semi-final.

Tonight eight songs competed in the semi-final, where only four songs qualified to the Final night. First, the public televoters decided that Justs and Catalepsia will proceed. Secondly, the jury selected MyRadiantU and Marta Ritova to proceed in Supernova. Samanta Tina withdrew from the competition.

Supernova 2016 - Semi-final

Justs - "Heartbeat" (Televote qualifier)

Catalepsia - "Damnation" (Televote qualifier)

MyRadiantU - "We will be stars" (Jury Qualifier)

Marta Ritova - "Not from this world" (Jury Qualifier)

Ivo Grīsniņš Grīslis - "We are the light"

Marta Grigale - "Choices"

Markus Riva - "I can"

Samanta Tīna - "The love is forever"(Withdrew)

Justs - "Heartbeat"

Catalepsia - "Damnation"

MyRadiuntU - "We will be stars"

Marta Ritova - "Not from this world"

Supernova 2016

All Sundays in February are Supernova Sundays:

7 February 2016: Supernova Heat 1 (10 competitors, 4 qualifiers)

14 February 2016: Supernova Heat 2 (10 competitors, 4 qualifiers)

21 February 2016: Supernova Semi-final (8 competitors, 4 qualifiers)

28 February 2016: Supernova Final (4 competitors, 1 winner)

The qualifiers in the heats and in the semi-final are determined by an expert jury and by public televoting. First the public televoters choose 2 songs to proceed, second the jury selects additional two songs to proceed in Supernova. In the Final it is solely public televoting that decides who the winner is.

The winner of Supernova 2016 will represent Latvia in Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Stockholm.

Latvia appeared in Eurovision Song Contest in 2000, and since the debut, the country has participated every year (16 times) in the contest. The best result was in 2002, where Latvia won Eurovision Song Contest with the song "I Wanna" by Marie N.

Latvia 2002: Marie N - "I Wanna"

The last seven years Latvia only managed to qualify for the Grand Final last year (Aminata Savadogo - " Love Injected") - three of the years they went last in their semi-finals!

About the author: Matthew Chircop (Malta)

Matthew is our correspondent in Malta. He has been following Eurovision for many years and has been a Eurovision fan since 2002. One of his favourite songs from the contest is Loreen's Euphoria.